


Old Habits, Young Love, and Other Things That Just Won't Die

by blueberryphancakes



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Food mentions, Getting Back Together, Implied Internalized Homophobia/Biphobia, M/M, Swearing, lots of hand holding, vague references to 2012
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-08
Updated: 2016-06-08
Packaged: 2018-07-13 21:06:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7137119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueberryphancakes/pseuds/blueberryphancakes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Despite their branding, Dan and Phil haven’t actually been friends for all of the seven years that they’ve known each other. For almost two of those years, ‘best friend’ was just a label they used on the internet, a clever disguise used to keep people from knowing what they really were. Because from the day they met until the day they broke up, Dan and Phil were something else entirely. Not something more. Just something else.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Old Habits, Young Love, and Other Things That Just Won't Die

**Author's Note:**

> Written for eamn-resu on tumblr, who requested a fic based on the (really cute) phanart "video editing gets boring sometimes" by houseplantsandmadbants. Sorry it took so long. I thought this was going to be a cute little drabble but I should have known that I would accidentally turn it into 4000+ words of angst followed by obscene amounts of fluff. I hope this isn’t too far off from what you wanted.

Phil is making soup when he hears it. It starts as a low whine and gradually grows in volume.

“Phiiil.”

“Phii-iillll.”

“Phiiiiiiiilllllllllllll.”

“What?” Phil calls back after he decides he can’t ignore it anymore.

No response.

He throws some chopped celery in the pot.

“PHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIILLLLLLLLLLLL.”

Phil sighs and turns off the stove. He trudges upstairs to the office to find Dan sitting at the computer, editing their most recent Undertale video. Well, the editing software is up anyway. Dan is sitting in the office chair with his head hanging back over the edge. His eyes are closed.

“You rang?”

“I’m tired of editing,” Dan complains.

“Want me to take over for a bit?” Phil offers, walking up to Dan and placing his hands on the back of the chair.

“No, it’s already partially edited in my style. They’ll notice if the swears start getting bleeped out halfway through.”

“You could just not swear while we’re filming. Save us both some hassle.”

“Where’s the fun in that?”

Phil hums in acknowledgement. “So if you don’t want me to edit, why’d you call me up here?”

Dan’s eyes flutter open at that, wide and sparkling and just a little bit mischievous. “Entertain me,” he says, the barest hint of a challenge in his voice.

Phil doesn’t know what comes over him.

He doesn’t know why he leans down. He doesn’t know why he presses his lips to Dan’s.

He doesn’t know why Dan doesn’t pull away.

Surprisingly, Phil is the one to pull away after a few seconds. He steps back and watches Dan stretch his neck out, as if he is trying to chase Phil’s lips but gives up when he realises they’re too far away. There is a faint blush painting Dan’s cheeks, and his eyes are shut again. Phil is grateful for that, as he’s fairly sure that what little color he usually has in his own face has drained away completely.

Dan lets out a small sigh, lifts his head, and slowly swivels around in his chair. He cracks his eyelids open and raises a single eyebrow. “What was that for?”

“You know. Old habits,” Phil says and waves his hand in place of the rest. It isn’t the real reason — he is pretty sure they’re five years past being able to call anything like that a habit anymore — but he honestly isn’t sure what the real reason is. “Sorry.”

“No, no,” Dan says, voice overly calm in a way that can’t possibly be genuine. “It’s okay.” Phil expects him to wipe his mouth off any second, but he doesn’t.

It isn’t until Phil leaves the room, apologizing two more times and running into the doorframe once on his way out, that he notices his own fingers ghosting over his lips, which still tingle with the memory of Dan’s.

* * *

_Despite their branding, Dan and Phil haven’t actually been friends for all of the seven years that they’ve known each other._

_For almost two of those years, ‘best friend’ was just a label they used on the internet, a clever disguise used to keep people from knowing what they really were. Because from the day they met until the day they broke up, Dan and Phil were something else entirely. Not something more. Just something else._

_And for a while, it was good. Really good. They were young and infatuated and maybe even in love, and even though they didn’t get to see each other in person very often, they made it work. They said and did things on Skype that would have made their parents force them to delete their accounts if they knew, and whenever they were alone together, they could hardly keep their hands off one another for more than five minutes._

_But it wasn’t just that. It wasn’t just the physical aspect; of that, Phil was almost certain. It was six-hour conversations that ended in nothing more scandalous than one of them falling asleep on his keyboard. It was texts sent at four in the morning that just said “I miss you,” not because they could do anything about it, but because they wanted each other to know. It was lazy mornings spent curled around each other long after they had both woken up, not saying anything, just listening to each other breathe._

_They were happy._

_At least, Phil was happy. He thought Dan was too._

_But everything disappeared the moment a camera was pointed at them, the few moments that slipped through the cracks met with a swift “edit that out.” And they kept using those clever words, both in videos and with friends, because they weren’t ready to tell the world what they were only just figuring out themselves._

_(In truth, those were Dan’s words, Dan’s worries, Dan’s reasoning. Phil just went along with it to keep Dan happy. He should have known it wouldn’t always be enough)._

_In retrospect, maybe they weren’t that clever after all._

* * *

Phil forgets about the soup.

He spends three hours sitting in various positions on his bed, playing games on his phone and hoping that one of them will make him tired, before his stomach growls and he remembers that he never had dinner. By the time he trudges back to the kitchen, the soup is cold and congealed. He pours it over a colander to get the vegetables out, throws them in the bin, and washes the rest down the drain.

His stomach growls again. He wonders if Dan has eaten or if he has skipped dinner too. The soup was supposed to be for both of them, but from the looks of it, Dan hasn’t touched it either. It’s a few minutes before midnight, so Dan is most likely still awake. He could knock on his door and offer to make something else. Maybe even spring for late-night pizza delivery.

He glances towards Dan’s bedroom. Light still shines from the crack under the door. After a moment of consideration, Phil grabs a chocolate-chip granola bar and retreats to his own room for the night.

* * *

_Things were fine until Dan moved to Manchester for college._

_After months of late-night Skype calls and long train rides, Phil was glad that his boyfriend would be nearby. He thought Dan would be glad too._

_He should have asked._

_There were a lot of things he should have asked._

_Like whether or not it was okay to lean in for a kiss in Dan’s dorm room, knowing that Dan’s roommate could come back at any time. (It wasn’t). And whether or not Dan had ever gotten around to telling his family about them. (He hadn’t). And why, exactly, Dan wanted to keep their relationship a secret in the first place._

_Phil never figured out that last one._

_Because, by the time Phil thought to ask, Dan didn’t want to answer._

* * *

Dan is being careful around him, and Phil doesn’t like it.

Admittedly, it’s better than the year following the breakup, when Dan was cold and distant most of the time but loud and hostile whenever Phil tried to have a real conversation with him. Now, two days after _the incident_ (as Phil has labeled it in his mind), Dan is still walking on eggshells every time he and Phil are in the same room. Right now, he’s cleaning the pan he used to make them both pancakes — despite Phil’s protests, he insisted that the person who made the mess should clean it up, which seems like flawed logic for reasons Phil can’t articulate — while Phil plays Neko Atsume at the dining table and pretends to ignore him.

It almost works for a little while.

“Would you like some more coffee?” Dan asks for the third time that morning.

Phil wants to scream.

“No thank you,” he says instead, gritting his teeth and forcing a smile.

Dan frowns and sets the coffee pot back down. “Phil?” he says. His voice sounds small.

“Yeah?”

Dan takes a seat in the chair next to Phil’s and waits for him to look up. Phil stares at his phone for another five seconds before he actually does. When his eyes meet Dan’s, his heart sinks. In the seven years that they’ve known each other, Phil has seen Dan angry and upset plenty of times. He doesn’t think he has ever seen Dan look so lost.

“Can we talk?” Dan asks, voice barely above a whisper.

Phil’s mouth falls open. “Y-you want to talk?” he stammers. “ _You_ want to talk?”

Dan hangs his head, hand coming up to rub the back of his neck. “Yeah, I deserve that.”

“No! I didn’t mean it like that. I didn’t mean to be rude. I’m just…surprised, is all.”

Dan chuckles half-heartedly. “I can imagine. Me? Actually _wanting_ to talk about feelings? What is this world coming to?”

“Dan.”

“Right. Not the time for sarcasm.” He looks at Phil through his lashes, and Phil’s heart doesn’t melt. It does _not_. “If it makes you feel any better, the sarcasm was directed at myself, not at you.”

“It doesn’t,” Phil says. He doesn’t have to say that Dan’s self-deprecating humour is his least favorite kind. Dan knows that. Dan has known that for a long time.

“I’m sorry,” Dan mumbles, so quietly that Phil can barely hear him.

“It’s okay. I just don’t like it when you talk bad about yourself.”

“No. No, that’s not what I meant.” Dan closes his eyes and shakes his head. “I’m sorry,” he repeats. “I’m sorry for all of it.”

“All of what?”

Dan sighs. “There are some things we should have talked about a long time ago.”

* * *

_Things were still somewhat okay until Phil suggested they move in together._

_He wasn’t even thinking about what a huge step it would be in their relationship or how proximity had already done nothing but make things more difficult between them. He was listening to Dan complain about his tiny dorm room and the high prices of single-bedroom flats in Manchester, and the suggestion just slipped out._

_Dan was silent for a long time, letting the words hang between them. When he finally spoke, his voice sounded more accusatory than Phil would have ever expected. “Don’t you think that’s going to raise some questions?”_

_“What do you mean?”_

_“I mean that we’re already starting to get comments on our videos with people asking if we’re together, analysing every little glance and touch, even the ones that actually didn’t mean anything.”_

_Phil wasn’t aware that they had ever shared any glances or touches like that. He said as much, and Dan practically scowled._

_“You know what I mean. We don’t need people butting into our personal lives like that.”_

_“Well, there’s an obvious solution here.”_

_“What’s that?”_

_“We could just tell them.”_

_“Tell them?” Dan repeated, incredulous. “You’ve got to be joking.”_

_“Why would I—”_

_“Phil,” Dan interrupted. He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I thought you would have gotten it by now. It’s not just that I don’t want people prying. I don’t want them to know.”_

* * *

Dan runs a hand back and forth through his hair, looking between Phil and the table as he tries to find the words he’s looking for.

Phil waits.

A full minute passes before Dan lets out a puff of air, smiles nervously, and says, “I don’t really know where to start.”

Phil shrugs. He doesn’t know either.

“I guess…” Dan says, “I guess I should start with the breakup. I never told you the real reason why it happened.”

* * *

_On some level, Phil knew it long before Dan said it._

_He knew when Dan would remind him to edit certain scenes out of their joint videos over and over, as if the world would end if Phil forgot. He knew when he would reach for Dan’s hand in front of other people — not just fans and strangers, but family and friends, people they trusted — and Dan would pull his own away. He knew when he would suggest spending the holidays together and Dan would say he wanted to be with his family and didn’t want Phil to be away from his own, even though Dan regularly turned down his mother’s invitations to come home for visits._

_Still, hearing it from Dan’s mouth hurt._

_Dan didn’t want them to know._

_Dan didn’t want anyone to know._

_Dan was ashamed of what they were, and Phil was too wrapped up in trying to keep what they had to admit it, even to himself._

_But then the words were out, and they couldn’t be taken back. They couldn’t be unheard. All they did was echo through the walls of the one-bedroom flat while Phil made dinner alone, watched anime alone, slept alone on the right side of a bed big enough for two._

_Dan stopped coming over. He stopped replying to Phil’s texts. When Phil went to the dorms to make sure he was okay, Dan’s roommate told him that Dan wasn’t there, even though Phil could clearly see a pair of tan legs hanging off the bed on the left side of the room._

_Weeks passed before Dan showed up at his door unannounced, asking for help with a video. Phil obliged because he was so happy to see Dan again for any reason, and he tried not to feel too destroyed when Dan got what he needed, thanked him, and left. This went on for months, the two of them avoiding all contact until Dan would show up at his door — sometimes at two in the afternoon, sometimes at two in the morning — asking for help with one thing or another — a video, homework, once even a jar he couldn’t open — and Phil would always help him because he wanted Dan to stay._

_Dan never did._

_Then, one day, Dan needed something that Phil couldn’t give him._

_“Get me out of it,” Dan said._

_“Er…hi?” Phil moved aside to let Dan in. “Get you out of what?”_

_“Everything,” Dan replied, standing in Phil’s hallway and tugging at his hair. “All of it. It’s all too hard. It’s too much, it’s too much, it’s too much. I can’t—”_

_“Whoa,” Phil said, rushing over and placing his hands on Dan’s shoulders carefully. “Dan, breathe. Look at me. Can you look at me?”_

_Dan’s eyes, which had been darting around rapidly, came to rest on Phil’s face. They were wide with terror._

_“Thank you. Breathe?”_

_Dan took a deep breath. Held it for a minute. Let it out slowly._

_“Good,” Phil said, amazed that he could keep his own voice calm even as his mind raced, trying to figure out how on Earth to deal with this. “What’s too much?”_

_“School,” Dan nearly wailed. “I can’t do it anymore, Phil. It’s too much. I can’t.”_

_“I thought you were already finished with final exams?”_

_“Oh, I finished them alright,” Dan spat. “And I fucking failed them.”_

_Phil’s mouth dropped open. He couldn’t help it. He didn’t expect that at all, and he had no idea how to respond._

_“If I want to stay in school,” Dan said, taking another deep breath and closing his eyes to fight back tears, “I have to retake them in August. And pass them this time.”_

_Phil stayed silent for a moment longer. Then he asked, “Do you want to stay?”_

_“I have to go soon. I’m supposed to go home today and I have to catch the train—”_

_“No,” Phil said, sliding his hands down Dan’s arms to wrap Dan’s shaking hands in his own. “I mean, do you want to stay in school?”_

_“I have to.”_

_“That isn’t what I asked.”_

_Dan groaned in exasperation. “It doesn’t matter what I want, Phil. It’s what I’m supposed to do. I have to.”_

_“No.” Phil shook his head. “You really don’t.”_

_It was then that Dan’s face, so carefully composed into a mask of anger, finally crumpled and fell. Dan fell with it. He landed on the floor, pulling his knees to his chest and burying his face in them._

_Phil dropped down beside him without hesitation. He wrapped his arms around him, and he didn’t let go until Dan stopped crying._

* * *

“But I broke up with you.”

Dan laughs. Actually _laughs_. “I didn’t leave you much choice, did I?”

* * *

_August came and went. Dan didn’t take his exams. He spent the month moving in with Phil instead._

_Phil should have been ecstatic to have his boyfriend move in with him._

_Only, how could he be even remotely happy when Dan looked so miserable? When he kept reminding Phil that he was only doing it because college dropouts couldn’t live in the dorms, and because he didn’t want to go back to living with his parents?_

_How could Phil be happy when he wasn’t even sure the term ‘boyfriend’ applied anymore?_

_“Maybe we should be friends,” he suggested one day, after they had been living together for almost a week and Dan had declined Phil’s offer to watch a movie together yet again._

_Dan snorted. “Are you really giving me the ‘let’s just be friends’ talk right now?” His tone was snarky, but he kept his eyes downcast._

_“No,” Phil said, taking a seat next to Dan on the sofa. He tried not to be offended when Dan scooted away a little. “Not exactly.”_

_Dan gave him a puzzled look._

_“I don’t think we could be just friends if we tried,” Phil explained. “But maybe we could be best friends.”_

_“We already are ‘best friends,’” Dan said. He even used air quotes._

_“That’s just branding. I mean for real.”_

_“You can’t just decide to be someone’s best friend all of a sudden. Not past age five.”_

_“Why not?” Phil shrugged. “It’s not like I don’t already love you.” Dan’s cheeks reddened at that, but Phil pretended not to notice. “Right now, it seems like the relationshippy bits of our…well, our relationship…are making things complicated. So why not take them out and leave the rest?”_

_“What is the rest?”_

_“You.” Phil bumped his shoulder against Dan’s. Dan didn’t lean away. “Me. Living together. Supporting each other. Maybe even watching movies from time to time.”_

_The corner of Dan’s mouth twitched up. Phil realised that he couldn’t remember the last time he saw Dan smile. It wasn’t much, but Phil would take it._

_“I’ve never had a best friend before,” Dan said._

_“Me either.”_

_Dan chewed on his lip for a moment. “Okay.” He stuck out his hand. “We’ll try it. Best friends, starting now.”_

_Phil shook his hand. “Sounds like a plan.”_

* * *

“There’s something I should have told you back when we first met,” Dan says. “No, before then, actually. I should have told you when we started flirting over Skype.”

He pauses. When Phil just stares at him, he continues. “I…here’s the thing.” He runs his hand through his hair again. His hands must be clammy, because it’s starting to curl. “Back then, I had no idea what I was doing. None. I mean…I’m not trying to say you were pushy. God, I think I _started_ the flirting.” He lets out a long exhale. “But at first, I had no idea why I was doing it. It just came naturally. And I thought, ‘Okay, it doesn’t have to mean anything. We’re just having a bit of fun.’ But then things…progressed.”

Phil nods. “I suppose it did all happen kind of fast.”

“It did,” Dan agrees. “And it was weird, because I was still stuck in the mindset that we were just having fun.” He reaches out to take Phil’s right hand with his left. It’s not just clammy, Phil notes; it’s trembling. “But at the same time, I was falling in love with you, and I didn’t know what that meant.”

Phil can’t help but let out a small gasp. In all the time that they were dating, Dan never once said that he loved Phil.

“You know, you hear all these stories about people who are gay or bisexual, about how they always knew deep down. How they always thought of themselves as different. But the thing is, I never did. Not until you came along. I never even considered it, not really. And I’d just gotten out of a long-term relationship with a girl, and I should have been sad about it, but I wasn’t. I wasn’t sad, because I had you.

“But I was still trying to figure things out, decide if what we had was real and what that might mean about my identity. I didn’t want anyone to know that I was struggling. Not even you. But suddenly, thousands of people we didn’t even know were able to see things that I tried so hard to hide. They talked like they knew me, and I hated it because I didn’t even know myself yet.”

“Dan,” Phil says, voice catching in his throat. “I…I didn’t know.”

Dan shrugs. “Like I said, I didn’t want you to.”

A nagging thought that has been digging at the back of Phil’s mind makes its way to the front. Phil tries to push it back, but it just won’t go away. “You didn’t think you could trust me?”

“It wasn’t that,” Dan reassures. “More like, I didn’t want you to have to take on my worries. Hell, I didn’t even want to _acknowledge_ my worries. I didn’t want them to be real. I just wanted them to go away.”

“And did they?”

“Eventually.” Dan grins sheepishly. “Once I grew up and stopped being such a stupid kid.”

“You’ve never been stupid.”

“But I was,” Dan argues. “I was stupid when it came to myself anyway. I couldn’t accept things about myself that everyone else could see, and the fact that other people could see those things just made me mad. Phil, at the time, I thought I wanted to be a lawyer. Me. A _lawyer_. If that doesn’t say how little I knew about myself, I don’t know what does.”

“So what changed?” Phil clears his throat. “I mean, how’d you get to be…not a stupid kid?”

“Time, I guess. Finally realising that you’d always be by my side, even when I was acting like a brat.” He squeezes Phil’s hand. “Coming to terms with the fact that I’d never stop loving you.”

Phil swears his heart skips a beat.

“I should have told you years ago,” Dan says. “I guess I was waiting for the right time.”

“The right time for what?”

Dan’s tongue darts out to wet his lips, a nervous habit that never fails to capture Phil’s attention. “I want to try again,” Dan says, nodding as though assuring himself that the words he says are true. “If…if you want to, that is. If you’re willing to forgive the stupid kid who wouldn’t even hold your hand in public, and if…” he wets his lips again, “…if you still even see me that way.”

“I do,” Phil says quickly. Dan’s eyebrows shoot up, but they lower again when Phil continues. “But…do you really think it’s a good idea? I mean, dating you was great for a while, but it nearly tore us apart. It’s taken so long to get to where we are. And what we have now…it’s good. Is dating again really worth the risk that things might not work out, and that we might not even be able to go back to being friends again after?”

“But that’s just it,” Dan says. “I’m not suggesting we go back to the way things were in 2009. I want things to be different this time.”

“How so?”

“Well, we’re friends now. Best friends. I don’t want that to go away just because we’re boyfriends.” He looks down at his hand, which is still wrapped around Phil’s, and begins playing with Phil’s fingers. “I think we’ve been doing it wrong all these years, trying to just be one or the other. I think maybe…maybe we were always meant to be both.”

They’re both silent for a long time. Finally, Dan says, “Not to be pushy, but do you…erm…do you want to share your thoughts on all this? Because — not gonna lie — I think I’m doing a pretty good job of acting calm but I’m mildly freaking out right now.” He says it with an almost-joking tone, but Phil knows he’s serious.

Phil looks down at their joined hands. Dan is now tracing patterns on his skin, and Phil thinks about how much he has missed that. “I’m not sure I’m ready to go back to hiding such a big part of my life,” he murmurs. He doesn’t want to hurt Dan, but it has to be said.

Dan shakes his head. “I wasn’t going to ask you to. I mean it when I say I want things to be different this time.” His hand stills. “I don’t want to keep you a secret. If we’re going to do this, I want to be able to hold your hand anywhere we go. Not just behind closed doors.”

Phil’s head shoots up. He meets Dan’s eyes and finds nothing but sincerity there. “Really?”

Dan laughs softly, nodding his head and smiling so wide that the skin around his eyes crinkles. “I mean, I’m not suggesting we tell the world right this _second_ , but yeah. If you want to, I want to.”

Phil can’t stop the grin that tugs at his cheeks. “Okay,” he whispers.

“Yeah?” If possible, Dan’s smile grows even wider. “We’re doing this?”

“We’re doing this,” Phil confirms.

Dan’s tongue darts out again. “Can…can I kiss you? Because you did that the other day and I had forgotten how nice it was and—”

Phil cuts him off. He presses his lips to Dan’s gently, carefully, like it’s their first kiss all over again.

Dan’s eyes slip shut. He lifts the hand that isn’t holding Phil’s and brings it around to the back of Phil’s head, pulling him closer. He sighs against Phil’s mouth, and before they know it, their lips are parting, moving against each other like they did years ago. It’s as though they never stopped.

Phil pulls back first, and his heart flutters at the sight of Dan’s sleepy, contented smile.

“I think this is going to be a good thing,” Dan says. Then he smirks. “And what great timing too.”

“What do you mean?”

“I was going to edit a video today, and I really didn’t feel like doing it.” He leans in again, letting his lips hover mere millimeters away from Phil’s. “Now I have the perfect way to procrastinate.”


End file.
